In the other rooms (save the bathroom) you can humorously tell your decorator to do it in early Pullman or seriously in Louis Quinze--and all will be well. Your furniture in these rooms must be passably durable, consistent, and beautiful, but it need not be unstainable, washable, non-absorbent, rigid, non-corrosive, etc., etc. Equipping a kitchen is like equipping a medical laboratory--skill must be employed. THE TABLE Chief among the furnishings of the kitchen are the table and its relatives. They have to be rigid, enduring, and must be the correct size for the job and the correct kind for the work they are meant to do. The table has been the storm center of discussion for years. The problem is this:--to find a table top that is non-absorbent, easily cleaned (not holding stains like an artist’s palette), not brittle, not cracking under changes of temperature or when utensils are dropped upon it. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Duparquet, Huot & Moneuse_ SHOWING THE MEAT-CHOPPING TABLE, RANGE, TABLE ARRANGEMENT, RUBBER MATS, SINK, AND POT SHELF ARRANGEMENT] For if you are doing your own work, you do not want to be scraping and cleaning all day, and if you have servitors you will want them for more productive work. This is a big order. Teachers, scientific experts, and manufacturers of laboratory conveniences (they are never called kitchen conveniences in these circles! Would this nomenclature help the servant problem?) have massed their findings and the results of the world-wide demand for a practical kitchen table top are the following: _Enamel Tops._ These (and their confrères vitrolite, etc.) are excellent if you know that the manufacturer is good. They do not crack or craze (fall into multitudinous vein-like cracks) and break with ordinary usage. The enamel is baked over steel or iron and should be at least three coats thick. _Glass Tops._ Not for general utility, but well adapted for the pastry table since with this top no special pastry board is needed. Glass tops are really very beautiful and have every qualification but unbreakableness. Some new patents are less brittle than old makes. _Marble Tops._ Excellent for the pastry table, and if one can afford them, fine for most things. There is only the remotest chance that they may break and only when they are less than 2″ thick. _White Metal Tops._ Excellent, non-corrosive, flat coverings. They are expensive but do not need any nursing to keep them in order. _Zinc Tops._ Very much used, but these tops buckle and puff and are very much affected by acids and alkalis.